Cinema Sojourns

Time Tripping Through the World of Film

Sean Connery as a Gypsy Grifter

Posted on February 21, 2021 by JStafford

What’s your favorite Sean Connery role before he became famous as James Bond. This question might stump the average movie-goer but film buffs would probably choose one of his menacing villain roles in either Hell Drivers (1957) or Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure (1959) or possibly his dashing romantic hero opposite Janet Munro in Walt Disney’s Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959), where he actually gets to sing. The latter is easily my favorite with the Irish mythology of leprechauns, pookas and banshees giving it the edge but there is something quite appealing about Connery trying his hand at comedy in the lesser-known British B-movie Operation Snafu (1961), which was released in the U.K. as On the Fiddle (It was also known as Operation War Head).

Continue reading →

Labor Pains

Posted on July 12, 2019 by JStafford

When cinema buffs talk about their favorite movies from that brief period known as the “angry young man” phase of the British New Wave movement, one title is usually overlooked – The Angry Silence (1960) – and that might be due to the film’s more overt focus on labor unions, working conditions and corruption. Directed by Guy Green, The Angry Silence (1960) shares many similarities with others of its ilk with its harshly realistic depiction of a specific working class milieu, all of it captured in a gritty, documentary-like approach that was partially shot on location (Ipswich, Suffolk) using local nonprofessionals and real actors. Continue reading →